"Reverse Mentoring"
http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2012-02-06/reverse-mentoring
Most workplace cultures are built on hierarchy and seniority: managers set the agenda and junior employees follow orders. If they're lucky, younger employees find mentors to teach them new skills and offer guidance. But a growing number of companies are reversing the mentor-mentee dynamic. Kojo talks to workplace consultant Howard Ross about "reverse mentoring," and what older workers can learn from younger colleagues.
Guests
Howard Ross
author, "Reinventing Diversity: Transforming Organizational Community to Strengthen People, Purpose, and Performance (Rowman & Littlefield); also Principal, Cook Ross
Comments
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Hello, Kojo and Howard
Wonderful show; very important and relevant subject.
I'm currently providing general intelligence community mentoring to an American University Junior studying International Relations and Arabic. I'm pretty sure we're both getting a lot out of our continuing relationship. I'm also very sure I'm getting as much or more than him out of our relationship! All of this 'new knowledge' I'm realizing is of course directly related to the subject of Reverse Mentoring that you're discussing today. I was pretty sure in the beginning that I was also going to learn things when I started providing experience-based information to the student. However, the amount of extremely relevant new information that the student is giving me is astounding. I consider myself (even after 40 years in my business) to be very lucky to be this new kind of Reverse Mentoring relationship.
Thanks again for another great show.
Mike Pafford
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Just tuned in, so forgive me if i state the obvious, but as a teacher-- a preschool teacher at that-- i learn best as i am teaching (imparting what most would consider simple information). Still, the act of teaching anything is a way of honing your own skills as a teacher, and being pushed to look at everything from different perspectives as we try to reach our students. I don't even think of teaching as "teaching" so much as i think of it as another way to learn .....for myself. In other words, teaching is a great way for senior employees to hone skills and better their craft
Christine
Sent from my iPad